or What You Can Learn from Other Writers • by William Cane

Lyric Writing Styles

The number one fault with most beginning writers is poor prose style. It's the first sign of an amateur.
A halting prose style, one that cannot get its first wind, one that makes readers squirm and sweat and
struggle to follow your thoughts should be anathema to any budding writer. But how can you avoid this problem?
How can you develop a flowing, easy-to-read, pleasant writing style? The answer is to study
the great masters of lyric style. What you'll find there can inspire you to write in a similar vein.

Horace advised writers to study poetry in order to improve their prose. Good
poets to study for this purpose include Poe, Swinburne, and Walt Whitman, although all poets have
something to teach you about meter, pacing, repetition, and sentence construction. Another method of
improving your work is to read it aloud, using your ear to test for euphony.

Those wishing to learn from the masters should read writers like Faulkner, Melville, Conrad, and the
early works of Ray Bradbury, especially Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury credits a poetry
teacher at the start of his novel. The King James Version of the Bible is also inspirational, as is
Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur. As to more modern examples, Herman Melville's sentences are perhaps a bit
old fashioned in places, but the full force of his lilting prose can certainly inspire even the modernist
writer. Consider: "And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating
oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the
smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight." (Moby Dick, Chapter 135.) Copying out passages from your favorite
lyric writer will help you get the proper rhythms into your own prose. Remember, for this purpose the
ear is the most important tool of the writer.

On page 220 of The Mosquito Coast Paul Theroux has his protagonist announce to his son, "They keep white
slaves!" This propels the reader into a state of curiosity and suspense. Is it true? Can it be true? The height of craft!